


An Ember

by serendipityxxi



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Birthday, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-27
Updated: 2012-04-27
Packaged: 2017-11-04 09:40:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/392407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serendipityxxi/pseuds/serendipityxxi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finnick remembers Johanna's birthday</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Ember

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sabaceanbabe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabaceanbabe/gifts).



> Disclaimer: Disclaimed
> 
> Written for sabaceanbabe in honour of her birthday :)

"Mason!" Finnick pounded on the door of the mentor's room on the seventh floor of the mostly empty training building.

There was no answer. So he knocked again, louder this time. The sound boomed up and down the silent hallway. "Open up, Johanna!" he demanded.

"Fuck off, Odair!" 

Finnick grinned. So she was in there. He slid a card out of his pocket and went to work jimmying the lock on her door. When he finally entered the room he found Johanna sprawled on the bed in her underwear, hair a wreck, face a mess and some badly bruised knuckles staining her sheets. 

"Nice to see you're not letting yourself go, Jo," he drawled, sitting on the bed at her side. 

Before he's even settled properly Johanna's hauled off and punched him in the jaw, knocking his teeth into his lower lip and setting it bleeding. She's up and making for the door before he's even finished falling backward from the blow.

Finnick is a victor too though and he moves fast as a lightningbolt sent from a trident, grabbing her around the waist and hauling her into him. He rolled them so she was pressed into the mattress beneath him, thrashing and writhing and cursing. They struggled for a while until Johanna simply stops. Finnick has probably fifty pounds on her and spends his days battling the ocean so most of that is muscle but Johanna's no weakling, when he pins her it's because she doesn't really have the zeal to fight him. She just goes still, turns her head to the side and stares blankly at the wall. Finnick relaxed his grip on her.

After another moment he rolled off her but left his arm sprawled across her stomach.

He gingerly probed his jaw, wincing at the bruise he can feel blooming like ink spreading in water. "Thanks for this, Jo," he grumbled. "It'll be another four hours with the preps tomorrow to hide it."

Johanna didn't respond so they lay in silence for long minutes after that. Finally she spoke, without turning her head. "What do you want, Finnick?" her voice weary and defeated.

Finnick shrugged, all fake nonchalance. "Haven't seen you much yet for these games, wanted to catch up."

"Before I go home?" she asked bitterly. It was day two of the latest games and District 7 had just been rendered tribute-less. The girl a fifteen year old had died on day one in the bloodbath of the cornucopia even though Johanna had expressly warned them to avoid it. The boy a thirteen year old had listened to her instructions but he'd been taken out an hour ago by a garotte one of the careers had set up. Without anyone to mentor Johanna would be headed back to the lumber yard soon.

"Exactly!" Finnick agreed heartily. Johanna restrained herself from punching him in the gut. Instead she rolled toward him, rested her head on his shoulder and threw a leg over both of his. Finnick wrapped his arm around her shoulders. 

"I really thought this year one of them might survive," she confessed quietly some time later. He hears the loathing in her voice, knows she thinks it's weakness to have hope. They all secretly do though, even Haymitch who doesn't even bother to try anymore. That last tiny spark of hope is almost impossible to put out no matter how much it hurts while it burns. 

"I know," Finnick replied, his hand smoothing up and down her back. His own tributes are still alive, thanks to the generous sponsors he's lined up and some genuine cunning on the part of the girl tribute. The boy is a lost cause but he wouldn't want it to come down to one against the other anyway, it's not like there could be two victors. Finnick catches himself, hears the way the Capitol has molded even his thoughts and is disgusted anew.

He picked up the cardboard packaging for a vid chip player and began to fiddle with it behind Johanna's back. She lay silent against him and so still Finnick couldn't even pretend she'd fallen asleep, her muscles were too rigid. He finished his project and nudged her lightly. She turned her head after the third poke. He's holding what looks like a slice of cake fashioned out of the cardboard packaging, instead of chocolate and frosting this one is topped with the promise of thousands of vids at your fingertips but it makes Johanna have to almost swallow back a sob anyway. It makes her think of all the years when all her family could afford were papercakes on their birthdays. She hasn't had one since the year before her games.

"Happy Birthday," Finnick murmured in her ear.

"How did you know it's my birthday?" she demanded, accepting the fake cake.

"I remembered you that year in your games, you were so pathetic in the arena lighting that huge fat candle in that roll. I thought for sure you were just doing that for sympathy."

Johanna rolled her eyes. "Sorry to disappoint you that I wasn't thinking about my public back then," she told him. She'd thought for sure that would be her last birthday. The following year there'd been no cake either though she'd had the money for it. Her family had been brought in for questioning that year, two of her brothers had already been killed though she hadn't known it then. The year after that she'd taken her first rotation as mentor for District 8 and there had been any number of cakes given it was the Capitol, none had been specifically for her. 

"Thank you, Finnick," she murmured when her voice felt more stable. 

Finnick shrugged his shoulder beneath her cheek. "Sorry I'm out of candles."

"We could set the room on fire instead," she suggested wistfully, startling a laugh out of Finnick.

"Maybe we will," he replied and kissed the top of her head. "Maybe we will."


End file.
